"Two Pittsburghs" (Download PDF)
Jewish tradition teaches of two Jerusalems. One is well seated in the reality of our day. It has dirty streets, hungry residents and dogs and cats fighting with each other. It is mired in the politics of religion with soldiers suspicious of certain young men and young women intimidated by the powers that be. Women are arrested for holding Torah scrolls at the Western Wall while others are imprisoned in poverty. People work and play in this Jerusalem, they take out the garbage and mow the lawn in this Jerusalem, they get sick and they die in this lower Jerusalem.
The other Jerusalem, the Jerusalem on high, serves as a vision of perfection, a glimpse into the world yet to be of what is possible when we take our religious duty seriously and live our faith in a powerful manner. It is truly a Jerusalem of gold in which peace reigns and all of its inhabitants have their secure place in God’s world.
According to our teachers, God fashioned the lower Jerusalem on the model of the heavenly Jerusalem, the one exactly facing the other. God will in time cause the upper Jerusalem to descend below… the Mother has joined the Daughter and have become as one. (Zohar) This is a long standing Jewish rabbinic teaching that is shared by our Christian and Moslem brothers and sisters as well.
As it is taught about Jerusalem, so it can be said about Pittsburgh. There are two Pittsburghs.
The lower Pittsburgh, is seated in the reality of our day with traffic, violence, weeklong unplowed snow covered streets, seniors with inadequate healthcare, political leadership that appears to be guided by self-interest & widespread drug use among our teens. In the winter months, the streets of this lower Pittsburgh are filthy. Reporsts indicate that the streets are littered with 100s, 1,000s, some even say 10,000s of these! God help yinz if parks in my spot.
The other Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh on high, is the Pittsburgh of promise. We read about it in magazines, newspapers and chamber of commerce brochures: “With its breathtaking skyline, its scenic waterfront, its cozily vibrant downtown, its rich mixture of cultural amenities, its warm neighborhoods and its scrubbed-clean skies, it no longer is the smoky, smelly, gritty mill town of yesteryear.” (Pittsburgh ranked tops in U.S. by The Economist British magazine gives city a jolly good No. 1 rating Wednesday, June 10, 2009 By Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) So they say each time Pittsburgh is named ‘most livable city in America’.
I first came to Pittsburgh in the early 1990s for the wedding of a Hebrew University classmate who was born and raised in Pittsburgh. Staying at the William Penn, I saw little more than the hotel. I returned for a second visit in 1999 when the Central Conference of American Rabbis met in our Reform Jewish beloved Pittsburgh to adopt the Statement of Principles of Reform Judaism. Once again, between hotel stays and shuttles to synagogues, I saw nothing of Pittsburgh. Of course, we had come here, returning to the city that gave birth to Reform Judaism. In 1885, at the now extinct Concordia Club, the leading Rabbis of our movement declared that we “…strive to regulate the relations between rich and poor, we deem it our duty to participate in the great task of modern times, to solve, on the basis of justice and righteousness, the problems presented by the contrasts and evils of the present organization of society.” We Rabbis came back to Pittsburgh 114 years later because we had yet to succeed at this task. We still haven’t. Our work is not yet done.
I next returned to Pittsburgh in January of 2006. After a 6 month job search, Barbara and the leadership of Temple David had agreed that she would serve as their next Rabbi. We arrived on a Steeler’s Sunday and were instructed to look left after getting out of the Fort Pitt tunnel. It was a glorious sea of black and gold. “Here we go Steelers, here we go…”
We knew that Pittsburgh was the right city for our family. We were looking for a city that was eastern with mid-western values. We were looking for culture, universities, sports, Broadway tours, good schools, a vibrant Jewish community that was not too big nor too small. Pittsburgh was and is a perfect match for us. We were very excited about coming to Pittsburgh because of its history and because of its promise. In fact, during the winter of 2006, as we prepared our Massachusetts house for sale and our family for the move, every single person… I mean every single person with whom we spoke about Pittsburgh, whether he was from Pittsburgh or she had never visited Pittsburgh, said, “Oh, I have heard great things about Pittsburgh.”
Even my now 80 year old Aunt Judy, a self admitted snobby upper east-sider of Manhattan who actually goes to the 92nd Street Y praised Pittsburgh after her first visit saying, “Who knew Pittsburgh was so great?”
This is the Pittsburgh on high. It is the Pittsburgh I moved to with aspirations and dreams of a bright future for my family. Now, whether you are a transplant like me, I know that I have another 21 years before I can even apply for true ‘Burgher’ status, and then I will have to wait 10 more years for the status to be granted, or you are a native, I am confident that this Pittsburgh on high is a part of your Pittsburgh psyche.
Have you ever flown into the Pittsburgh International Airport? You know that building west of the city. It’s the magnificent structure that is used to 30% capacity. The last time I flew in, despite my unsuccessful efforts to grab the departing tram back to the land side terminal, I was stuck in the tram boarding area. As my eyes wondered up, looking for a point of interest, I came across a video monitor looping a movie about Pittsburgh. Has anyone noticed that video? It has sweeping views of the greenery and buildings, the bridges and the parks, the rivers and the stadiums.
Over all those magnificent vistas appear the words:
America’s most livable city…it’s not just a ranking, it’s a reality.
Pittsburgh is America’s emerging green leader.
Top town for adventure.
City of the future.
The Pittsburgh region is home to 35 colleges and universities… producing more than 31,000 graduates per year. 5th most affordable housing market. The nation’s second most educated workforce. Top 10 best overall commercial real estate investment market in the US. Best arts destination in the US. Ninth lowest cost of living in the nation. Home to more than 100 multi-billion dollar global corporations
This is our Pittsburgh on high and I love it. But, watching this video, reading these articles, my thoughts turn to the lower Pittsburgh.
Now, I am not talking about the lower Pittsburgh you might be imagining: “That other neighborhood of Pittsburgh where those Blacks live.” “That other neighborhood of Pittsburgh where those Hispanics live.” “That other side of Pittsburgh I drive through in Wilkinsburg on a daily basis from Monroeville to Squirrel Hill.” I am talking about the lower Pittsburgh in which Jews of all economic standing live. I am talking about the Pittsburgh where you live, where we live with blacks, browns and others.
This is the Pittsburgh I have come to know through our Just Congregations listening sessions. Sitting in congregants’ homes with 12 or so congregants we simply ask the question, “What keeps you up at night?” We ask this question in hopes that we can better understand what is in your self-interest to change and how we can join together, many single strands in an even stronger rope, to be a powerful force in making a lasting change in the lower Pittsburgh. We ask the question and then we listen as you tell stories.
This lower Pittsburgh is filled with Temple Sinai members who care about the quality of care our senior citizens are receiving in Jewish senior facilities. Just as many of us are frustrated about 10, 15 or 20 minute delays on the parkway, I have heard that our seniors are lined up in wheelchairs in their own traffic jams, with no aides to help them onto the elevators, and they, unlike each of us, have no shortcuts to avoid the traffic.
Do you want to live in a Pittsburgh in which our seniors are not, in which you may not be, provided the care you deserve? Is that the Pittsburgh in which you want to live? Are you willing to do something about it?
This lower Pittsburgh is filled with Temple Sinai members who care about what they describe as widespread drug and alcohol use among our teens. We have teens that refuse to go to the bathroom in school because it is the place to sell and buy. We have teens who know that you can get your stuff under the dangling sneakers hanging from a telephone wire on the street. We have teens whose parents are enabling their alcohol abuse in their own homes thinking that if they are going to drink, let them drink in my house.
Do you want to live in a Pittsburgh that is raising a generation of addicts? Is that the Pittsburgh in which you want to live? Are you willing to do something about it?
This lower Pittsburgh is filled with Temple Sinai members who care about self-imposed segregation. Think about it, how many friends of color, black or brown, do you really have? How many people of color do you see at Heinz Hall, the Benedum or Byham theaters? A blogger wrote about our neighborhoods:
You have got to be nuts if you don’t think Pittsburgh is racist and segregated. I think it might be one of the most salient features of the whole city… People will consistently tell you that lots of areas which really are only “white” are “good” and areas which are actually much safer and nicer, but have some percentage of black residents are “bad.” I find there’s a lot of social suspicion, too – it is very difficult to make friends with people across races here. For the most part, I’d say most Pittsburghers are pretty pleasant to anyone in a casual setting, but it rarely gets past the acquaintance stage. http://www.city-data.com/forum/pittsburgh/133844-pittsburgh-segregated-racist3.html
Do you want to live in a Pittsburgh where people are judged by the color of their skin and not the quality of their character? Is that the Pittsburgh in which you want to live? Are you willing to do something about it?
This lower Pittsburgh is filled with Temple Sinai members who care about the lack of quality leadership in our region. Raise your hand if the Blizzard of 2010 kept you or your family homebound not because of the snow itself, but because of the lack of planning on the part of our city officials. The firing of one EMS worker is hardly any justice for the family of Curtis Mitchell who died on the morning of February 7, after 10 calls to 911 and a request from EMS that a man with abdominal pains walk through 20 inches of snow to the ambulance. Just this week two dispatchers were suspended for sending ambulances to the wrong locations.
Do you want to live in a Pittsburgh where you could be the next one to die because of poor planning, inequitable resources and keystone cop-like implementation? Is that the Pittsburgh in which you want to live? Are you willing to do something about it?
This lower Pittsburgh is filled with Temple Sinai members who care about young professional flight from Pittsburgh. Raise your hand if you know someone who was raised here who believes that there is no future for them here and now works and lives somewhere else. That airport video tells us that 31,000 people graduate from our universities on an annual basis. Where are they going? Are they your neighbors? Do they work in your company? Just ask our congregant Carl Kurlander about his “Tale of Two Cities” film documentary (being presented and discussed with Carl during this afternoon’s beit midrash) and try to figure out how we can use the power of over 100 multi-billion dollar Pittsburgh companies to keep more than a small fraction of those graduates here. I know people, you know people, who have said, “If I lose my job, we are leaving Pittsburgh because I won’t be able to find another one here.” Many of you have lived through a Pittsburgh which lost a generation after the steel industry declined, and have seen our young people too often leave to find opportunities and those who would bet on their abilities in other cities.
Do you want to live in a Pittsburgh that is sending its best and brightest 20 year olds to the coasts? Is that the Pittsburgh in which you want to live? Are you willing to do something about it?
What a laundry list! Elder care, teen addiction, segregation, poor leadership, and young professional flight… and that isn’t even half of what we have heard so far. The list will grow in the months to come. How can these be the characteristics of ‘the most livable city in America’?
Here is our plan. Temple Sinai, through our Tikkun Olam Center for Jewish Social Justice, is now a Just Congregation joining with scores of other congregations in our Union for Reform Judaism across this continent who believe that our purpose is redemption: the sacred transformation of the world as it is – parched by oppression into the world as we know it should be – overflowing with justice.
Our first step is listening. Just as I was able to tell you these stories because of the listening sessions we held this summer, so will we continue to listen into the fall and the winter. If you want to be among the first 400 congregants to be heard, please register in the lobby on your way out. We have listening sessions scheduled here at Temple while children are in religious school to make it easier for you. We have sessions scheduled at peoples’ homes. We have sessions this afternoon during the beit midrash. These sessions are for young and old alike: from recent bar/bat mitzvah students to our octogenarians plus. If you want to host a meeting, please let us know in the lobby as well. We want you to tell us your stories. We want you to tell us what keeps you up at night. We want to listen to you.
Our second step will be selecting and choosing our issues. The list of issues I shared with you today will grow. Obviously, we cannot take on all these issues or others yet to be uncovered. So let’s be modest in our selection. In a community gathering, an issues assembly, to be held before Purim, we will democratically select 2 or 3 issues that speaks to as broad a range of congregants as possible. These issues might be internal relating to the services we offer at Temple Sinai, they might be external relating to the larger Pittsburgh Jewish community or even, as you could imagine, bigger and relating to the Greater Pittsburgh area at large. The issues assembly will happen before Purim because Purim reminds us that it can take just one person, Mordecai, to refuse to bow down to the powers that be. It can take just one person, Esther, to knock on the door of the King and risk her life of comfort for the sake of others. I know that this congregation is filled with Mordecais and Esthers.
Our third step will include research and action. We will study and learn, interview and assess, gather and collate as much information as is needed to determine our plan. We will educate ourselves in preparation for thoughtful action. Then we will act. We will take that vision of Pittsburgh on high and superimpose it on the lower Pittsburgh. In so doing, we will take our faith and commitment as Jews committed to the social justice redemption of our world and we will live that faith through the force of our collective power. We will constantly consider how you want to join together in power with each other here at Temple Sinai, with other advocacy organizations and with the 40 congregations of our Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network (PIIN) of which Temple Sinai is the longest standing Jewish member congregation. PIIN is already on this road. I would like to invite you to join me on October 21 at 6:30 PM at Rodef Shalom when PIIN will gather 1,000 strong from all across Pittsburgh for a public action about public education, transit and immigration reform. We will do this, Christians, Moslems, Hindus and Jews, as one. Fliers are in the lobby.
And by the time we are done, we will again ask the questions: Is that the Pittsburgh in which I want to live? And the answer might be ‘yes’. What have I done to change the lower Pittsburgh? And we will sit back and tell stories of our struggles and our successes even as we prepare for the next issue.
In this way, my brothers and sisters, we will live out Isaiah’s mandate to not just don sackcloth on our holy days and fast in vein but to actually become repairers of the breach: the breach between the Pittsburgh on high and the lower Pittsburgh, the breach between God’s eternal values and the way we often apathetically lead our lives, the breach between the Hill and Squirrel Hill, the breach between you and you and you and you and me…. so that we can join together in sacred purpose knowing that we have done good. We will build meaningful bridges with deep foundations and strong girders that connect diverse people to one another in the city known for its bridges so many of which are in need of repair.
I am not na•ve although my optimism might give you that impression. I know that this is hard work. It will take a lot of hands, more team work than we are accustomed to here at Temple. Our progress will be slow and our results might be less than we hope for. But, whatever the results, whenever they come, we will be able to say that we did it here at Temple Sinai, a Just Congregation!
After all, this is Pittsburgh. Within 5 miles of this sacred gathering, Dr. Jonah Salk put an end to polio. Mr. Rogers raised a generation in gentleness. Dr. Thomas Starzl pioneered transplant surgery. Roberto Clemente took flight to save the neediest of his day. KDKA radio was the first to broadcast the news for all to hear. Carnegie and Mellon laid the foundations upon which our academic and cultural lives are built today. Just as they did not allow rust to settle in around them, so must we shake the rust off in our own day.
Our time to act is now because I am concerned that the Pittsburgh on high is quickly floating further and further away from the lower Pittsburgh and I want my children, your children and your grandchildren, to have a place in the Pittsburgh on high.
And some day, we will be waiting for the tram at the airport not because we just missed the last one, but because there will be hoards of people waiting for trams. We will be waiting with a crowd at the top of the escalator, near the statue of Franco Harris making the immaculate reception, because we will have performed real miracles in this city.
On that day we will look up at that television monitor and see a picture of the Pittsburgh on high that looks a lot more like the Pittsburgh in which we live. In the words of the rabbis, “the two, mother and daughter, face to face, will merge as one” and the breach will be repaired.
On that day, so says Isaiah, when we will have loosened the chains of injustice that separate the blacks, browns and the whites in Pittsburgh…
On that day, so says Isaiah, when we will have set the oppressed free and broken every yoke that is keeping us from doing our part to fix Pittsburgh…
On that day, when we will be sharing our food with the hungry and providing the poor stranger with shelter not just episodically but systemically ensuring that everyone in this steel city lives powerfully with food and shelter…
On that day, when we will see the naked and will clothe him, when not one person, not black nor white, not brown nor yellow, not gay nor straight, not young nor old, will stand in naked vulnerability…
On that day, when we will not turn away from our own Pittsburgh…
On that day, because of our efforts here at Temple Sinai, our work with PIIN and others who care about lasting change in Pittsburgh, our light will break forth like the dawn and our healing will quickly appear.
As Isaiah taught so long ago, then our righteousness will go before us and the glory of Adonai will have our backs. On that day, when we call, Adonai will be with us. When we call out, God will answer us ‘Hineni,’ I am here with you in Pittsburgh because of what YOU and YOU and YOU and YOU and YOU have done. Just Congregants in a Just Congregation.
